The Mislaid Magician review

The third in the series of adventures about Kate and Cecy, by Patricia C Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, was a return to the genius of the first one.  They went back to the letter format, including letters from Thomas and James (the protagonists' husbands) as well as from the two women.  Ten years of marriage for each of them had resulted in a handful of brilliantly written children, and the plot was just as absurd and fantastic as before.  A truly excellent series of books, which I hope will be extended into many more volumes.

Sense and Sensibility (TV) review

Tsk.  The recent BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility was doing so well.  In the first two parts, the casting and characterisation were excellent and the adherence to the novel was pretty much spot on.  I sometimes felt the dialogue seemed a little stilted, and it was never going to usurp my affection for the albeit much more truncated Emma Thompson film version, but overall it was very good.

And then they fudged the ending.  The whole of the last part felt rushed, various pertinent plot points were glossed over or ignored, so as to make the narrative rather confusing, and it departed further and further from the book in its details as it went along.  Still enjoyable overall, but I say again - tsk.